Waiting for God

Waiting for God, to a darvish, is cultivating patience, that is, waiting for God’s sake. As the Prophet (pbuh) said: “…Nobody can be given a blessing better and greater than patience.”

Waiting in line, being stuck in traffic, all the frustrating, aggravating activities of daily life, are also a part of the Sufi path, or any spiritual path. It is not just a dreary test, but an opening and a lesson of love and faith. Quietly reciting my zekr in a traffic jam is a blessing of unexpected time, smiling at the people around me waiting in line at the Post Office, engaging them in conversation, these are the simple acts of daily kindness that grow out of patience.

Patience is submission to the moment; the prostration and prayer of life.

God lives everywhere, within us and around us, in great deeds and small, in acts of love as simple as cooking a meal or as profound as saying grace (or Bismillah) before eating it. As Teresa of Ávila observed, “God lives also among the pots and pans.” In other words, in our daily actions. If these include comforting a crying child, doing dishes, folding laundry, ironing, taking out the garbage, all the small acts of daily life, they can be part of the simple patience that brings us closer to the Source of our humanity.

In Teresa of Lisieux’s words, “the Lord needs from us neither great deeds nor profound thoughts. Neither intelligence nor talents. He cherishes simplicity. Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them.”

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21 Responses to Waiting for God

Assalamu alaikum dear brother Irving,
A moving sharing! O that we may all enjoy such an act of LOVE, Ameen.
Yahya ibn Mu’ath ar-Razi (may Allah the Exalted bestow His mercy upon him) once said: “The patience of the lovers of the Lord is much harder than the patience of the ascetics. How astonishing it is, that they can be patient at all!”
He then waxed poetic, as he declared: “Patience is bearable in all other contexts, but with You it is unbearable.”
Wassalamu alaikum
almiskeenah

i remember reading one time about the mathematical miracles in the holy qur’an. “hardship” and “patience” are both mentioned exactly 114 times each. and then i recall verse 5 and 6 in chapter 94 “al-inshirah”:

“Verily, with every difficulty there is relief.”

thank you for the reminder….overcoming any hardship begins with patience.

Assalamu alaikum,
dear brother Abdur Rahman, it is from From Necklaces of Gems by Shaikh ‘Abd Al-Qadir Al-Jilani, Rahmatullah alaihi. My current post quotes from this text, and it was while reading for this I found the saying of Shaykh Yahya. In the meantime I have visited your cyber home! Masha’Allah, such a sublime time I had….and more so knowing it has come to me all the way from GREEN Wales! Jazakumullah khairan. I will comment there, Insha’Allah.
Wassalamu alaikum

Thank you all for the kind comments. I have been reading over the comments on the various posts, and see that they are often a more interesting extension than the original post, and add immeasurably to it in wisdom and insight.

So thank you all, dear friends, who happen here and leave a kind and wise word :) You make the journey easier.

Wow! What an excellent post filled with words that I needed to read. i do often get frustrated at the traffic and lines I have to wait at in the stores. Life is just so busy at times, it seems you can barely take a breath. Patience is very hard to practice, but God loves to see it and I know the times I have been patient in difficult situations I have felt better and not stressed.

We do forget about the small things on a daily basis because we are always rushing towards the larger. The small things do count, it is the simple things. It reminded me of a song I listened to a while ago called Small Deeds by Native Deen.

Thanks for this post brother Irving! It’s very relevant to the situation I’m in at the moment.

Mashallah! It is an excellent lesson. I really, really wanted this now at a point in my life when chores and responsibilities are squeezed and thrown into my lap and I see myself losing patience everyday. Thank you dear brother darvish for this most wonderful post and may Allah reward you immensely for your words of wisdom and love that teach us very important lessons.